With the growing concern over global climate change as well as oil supplies, there has been a recent trend to develop various hybrid systems for motor vehicles. While numerous hybrid systems have been proposed, the systems typically require significant modifications to the drive trains of the vehicles. These modifications make it difficult to retrofit the systems to existing vehicles. Moreover, some of these systems have a tendency to cause significant power loss, which in turn hurts the fuel economy for the vehicle. Thus, there is a need for improvement in this field.
One of the areas for improvement is in the construction and arrangement of the hydraulic system. Hybrid vehicles, and in particular the hybrid module associated with such a vehicle, have various lubrication and cooling needs which depend on engine conditions and operational modes. In order to address these needs, oil is delivered by at least one hydraulic pump. The operation of each hydraulic pump is controlled, based in part on the lubrication and cooling needs and based in part on the prioritizing when one or more hydraulic pump is included as part of the hydraulic system of the hybrid vehicle. The prioritizing between hydraulic pumps is based in part on the needs and based in part on the operational state or mode of the hybrid vehicle.
Another area for improvement within the hydraulic system is in the monitoring of engine conditions, settings, and the status of fluid levels. Related to such monitoring is the desire (and ability) to alert the driver (or operator) of the vehicle when a condition, reading, or level is outside of a desired range or deviates from a desired value. As one example, consider a desired oil level (or range) for the vehicle or for some portion or subassembly of the vehicle and the importance of alerting the driver when a low oil condition exists.